*(mood song:"Twenty One Pilots - House of Gold")

When Erik and the others came to the surface they were impressed, the blue light from the sun reflected on gigantic golden floating shells, presenting a magnificently beautiful sunset.

Erik: "What are those?"

Rose: "According to the Golden Dawn group's database, those are the source of their golden color DNA that they give to all their mount beasts"

Inky: "Are they edible?"

Rose: "Technically yes, though the shells are three meters wide reinforced bio alloy, it would be easier to eat the submarine than damaging these things..." She paused as the submarine stopped right next to one and patted it "They grow on the deep sea floor as polyps and start generating their shell, and once ready they have an organ that generates air out of the water, filling their shells until they are ripped off the seafloor and ascend to the surface like a cannonball... ready to live floating on the surface while dropping their shell covered eggs to the sea floor every month... the Golden Dawn group collects the eggs with a net below and uses them to feed their beasts... as for food the data shows that they are filter feeders like clams and mussels, but also seem to extract energy from sunlight on their adult phase..."

Erik: "Why not raise them in a lab? that's how they raise clams and other sea animals back on Earth"

Rose: "Let's see, experiments with lab grown subjects in dark laboratories have led to sickly weak individuals, and without the deep sea as part of their early development, shells have grown to be weak and crumble, so lab growing has been deemed unproductive"

Timberly jumped on top of it, it was even bigger than the submarine, the size of a small island.

Timberly: "If we had known about these in the early days... we could have built settlements on top"

Rose shook her head: "While you in your current state are fine on the surface thanks to human and lizardman DNA, as you were before it would be hard to move and the UV radiation would have scorched your skin on the surface continuously"

Jennifer: "The sun does feel a bit ticklish..."

Amanda: "Surface radiation is way higher than on Earth's surface too"

Sarah: "...that's true, I would have been in trouble if I didn't consume Erik's DNA"

Erik: "Yeah, you are an Atlantean now too~"

Sarah was confused: "Atlantean? what's that?"

Erik was proud: "Homo Sapiens Sapiens Atlantean, the name of the race I have thought of"

Sarah: "Hmm a bit tacky but it sounds fine... now, shall we go take some samples?"

Everyone jumped off and landed on top of the floating shells, the surface was rough like a rocky island, but all made of a golden metallic substance.

Erik: "Is it safe to go underneath? I would like to take some of those eggs"

Rose shook her head: "it's not completely safe but luckily there's no need for that, just follow me~"

They walked for some time and reached the other side, seeing a crane along with a small building two stories high made of golden metal, a dozen lizardmen on guard on them, instantly getting on guard when they saw them.

Erik: "Shouldn't we-"

*bang* a dozen almost simultaneous shots surprised him, as he turned back and saw twelve bots carrying rifles.

Erik: "Couldn't we just use the bots to pretend to be Sarlex?"

Rose: "No, this place has too much traffic, someone would get suspicious, but on the other hand, a raid by the Iron Sect makes way more sense~"

Erik: "Iron Sect? wait oh..." he noticed the rifles the bots were carrying seemed replicas of the ones the Iron Sect elites used.

Rose: "Yeah, I took one from a corpse and replicated it, when they see the cause of death they will just blame the Iron Sect, so let's go!"

They entered the building and on a control room they pulled a lever to raise the crane, and that raised a net from the waters, full of golden spheres.

Erik: "Nice, I was planning to refine the sample's DNA using some electric slugs, if I add this DNA too, then it could increase the benefits in armor, and I really like the idea of that air generating organ..."

Rose: "Hmm from the samples we got we can expect skin hardening, invisibility, shapeshifting, and armor secretion... if you add the golden eggs... yeah we better try feeding some eggs to the slugs as they only absorb beneficial traits, but better don't mix anything, since the golden eggs are widely available, better try feeding some slugs first and extract their DNA, and then try the armour parasites DNA"

Erik: "Yeah, that makes sense, no need to rush things"

Timberly grabbed a nearby basket backpack and filled it with eggs.

Timberly: "Let's carry a lot back then everyone, if anything we can just eat them for food, meat is running a bit low"

Sarah grabbed one and spun it on her finger.

Sarah: "First we should test them for poison, before deciding to eat them, and even if edible they could have a horrible taste..."

Erik: "Indeed... by the way" he turned to everyone "destroy the corpses and the area a bit, we need to make it look like a monster attack"

-- Inside the Submarine --

Inside the armoury that also acted as the Med Bay, Sarah blended one of the eggs and analyzed the composition excitedly.

Erik: "You seem to be having fun?"

Sarah: "Well, this is my field of study so... yes it's fun"

Erik: "So, poisonous? edible?"

Sarah: "To a normal human it should be yes, but never raw as they contain a substance similar to solanine"

Erik: "Hah, like potatoes!"

Sarah: "...yes, like potatoes"

Erik: "Then it would be fine if we cook them?"

Sarah: "I tested that too, a temperature above 210°C should start the degradation, but the molecular links are quite strong so the cooking time would also take a long time, and that would also mean complete DNA degradation, so as a food source it would work, but since you wanted to extract-"

Erik: "it's fine, we have the slugs for that"

Sarah was confused: "...the what?"

Erik: "You didn't see them? carry some eggs and follow me"

They arrived at the first floor past the exposition and recreation rooms where the octopeople were just chatting, and arrived at the slug power room. A room with a cylindrical aquarium in the middle full of glowing slugs swimming, while at the sides of the room, there were huge aquariums with some specimens of edible clams, algae, and other edible harmless creatures that could be kept alive instead of on deep storage.

Erik put one egg on each of the aquariums to the sides to let them grow, and then using a metallic tentacle that grew from his shoulder he grabbed a slug from the middle tank, quickly closing it again, and setting it atop three golden eggs on the floor.

The slug instantly tore the eggs apart with its diamond sharp teeth and ate every bit, instantly turning a golden color and hardening as it grew a golden caparace, and then it tried to attack Erik, but he easily grabbed it, his hands capable of bending steel easily twisted the now rigid neck of the slug.

Erik: "This is the way to refine DNA, their tissues are like sponges for beneficial DNA"

Sarah: "Fascinating"

Erik smiled amused: "There's also another way that only I use" A mouth appeared on his left arm and he tossed the slug inside, the bump travelling up his arm and reaching his mechanical pre stomach, getting separated all the DNA automatically and shown on a display in his eye.

Erik: "I have quite a bit of cybernetic upgrades inside, so I can refine what I absorb" he seemed to tap on the air on a menu only he could see "now I discard carbohydrates etc to be used as energy, and just absorb the pure DNA"

Erik felt a cool surge through his body and then an itchiness all over for a moment but it quickly subsided.

Erik: "Rose, scanner"

A robotic arm came from the ceiling and scanned Erik's body.

Erik: "results?"

Rose arm: *Genetic alterations detected in bones, scales, teeth, nails, and hair creation, the next time you shed or progressively the changes will become more apparent, the process can be sped up by eating the raw material*

Erik: "Anything else? I find an itchiness near my kidneys"

Rose arm: *a new organ seems to be growing attached to them, analyzing....* a needle quickly stabbed Erik, though the damage healed almost instantly *organic purpose seems to be oxygenation of the blood by the decomposition of the CO2 it contains.... slug DNA and polyp DNA seem to have combined to form a new kind of waste processing organ, nutrient intake like Potassium is recommended*

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Erik: "Thanks" The arm retreated back inside the ceiling and he turned to the confused Sarah "Easy right?"

Sarah: "Not at all, and by the way... is Rose always listening?"

Erik: "Well, WE are the ones inside her"

Rose's voice came from the walls: *indeed*

Sarah: "...fine, anyways can you mutate and give me some slugs? I wanna run some tests, some normal ones too, I wanna expose them to the DNA from the Golden Dawn lab samples of that armour parasite too"

Erik: "Sure thing"

While Erik helped Sarah, in the second deck main bath, Timberly, Jennifer, Jana, Inky, and her daughters, Zoey, Eirene, Ana, Elena, and Maria, were taking a bath.

While Erik helped Sarah, and Rose was navigating the submarine, Inky was taking a bath with her daughters, and Timberly, Jennifer, and Jana had joined in.

Jana, Jennifers' apprentice looked at the cute daughters and smiled, poking Maria's cheek with a chuckle, as the little girls swam from one side to the other of the pool.

Inky frowned: "why did you guys come here?"

Timberly shrugged: "It's you who came to the communal pool"

Jennifer: "Doesn't Erik have a private bath in his room?"

Inky sighed: "It's full of those small Jaksha, I could swear there are more every week"

Timberly smiled: "we already restricted the other soldiers from coming in, but it might not be a bad idea to present the girls to the others"

Jennifer nodded in agreement: "The future of the octopeople could end up on their hands, getting them to know our culture better is a good idea"

Inky scoffed: "Yeah right, our culture... I won't put pressure on my daughters, they will decide what they wanna do, like humans do"

Timberly frowned: "They ain't human, they are octopeople, the strongest individuals have always the honor and responsibility to lead the species"

Inky: "There won't be a need for that, you guys can do that"

Jennifer: "What if a replacement is needed?"

Inky: "Rose, Erik, and myself can do that"

Timberly: "...well, at least they should be taught how to grapple and defend themselves right?"

Inky nodded: "I will teach them myself with Erik, and... while I breathe nothing shall harm them" with a determined face.

Timberly laughed loudly: "A bold claim, can you follow through with it though?"

Inky: "Why? wanna go?"

Timberly smiled widely, starting to stand up as veins bulged on her muscles.

Jennifer and Jana jumped between them.

Jennifer: "Hey stop, the kids could get hurt!"

Timberly sat back down with a sigh: "Being brave and all is fine, but knowing one's own limits is fundamental to survive~"

Inky got annoyed and got her daughters who were swimming around and picked them up, to the arms of the nanny bots that were waiting by the side.

Timberly: "Going already~?"

Inky: "...I'm gonna go help Erik"

Jennifer: "Mind if we come along then?"

Inky shrugged: "as you wish" exiting the room.

-- Submarine Armoury --

In a set of containers, Erik and Sarah had put slugs with different materials, not having from super golden colored armoured slugs, to completely empty looking containers, all containers also had a metal rod as electricity arced inside and was devoured by the slugs, as they grew in size slowly.

Inky and the others entered at that moment.

Inky: "How are you doing, anything I can help with?"

Erik: "Hm? ah, Inky and our precious daughters! and Timberly and Jennifer, we were almost done actually"

Inky pointed at the containers: "So you finished the mutating process... wait why is one empty?"

Sarah: "That is the most promising specimen, it has absorbed the chromatophore mutation, so it can almost perfectly change its outside color"

Jennifer: "What would be the next step then? do we eat them?"

Erik: "No, we will bleed them and feed them with electricity and boiled meat, an almost endless source of pure DNA"

Inky: "I see... so we drink the blood?"

Sarah chuckled: "Kind of, I will sequence their DNA and isolate the new DNA comparing it to a normal slug's DNA and extract that way only the new DNA, eliminating any variables that way, and the refined DNA will be a viscous slightly salty substance, due to the sodium and potassium ions"

Timberly: "Salty? I might know a solution to that, I've gotten quite good at making fruit taste smoothies using Erik's artificial flavorings"

Erik: "That's good, some benzaldehyde is the easiest one"

Sarah: "Cherry flavour? might as well add color, do you have anything similar to carmine?"

Erik shook his head: "Not for now, we might be able to get some astaxanthin for red pigment since it's found on yeast, algae, crustaceans, and fish back on Earth..."

Sarah: "Oh, I can search for compatible yeast samples, where do you keep specimens?"

Erik: "Well, we have some frozen on the cold storage, then you have the exposition room on the first level for rare materials, and the aquarium to search on the living specimens"

Sarah was excited: "Finally something to research, DNA potions!"

Erik laughed: "You will get on well with Beritkan"

Sarah: "Who?"

Erik: "The ex alchemy leader of the Shadow Claw tribe, he used to be a crab man, but now he looks like a human and basically makes DNA potions for our base"

Sarah: "Oh... so it's not new"

Erik: "Nah, his potions look all dark and taste horrible, it will be good. Food coloring also has lots of culinary purposes too"

Sarah: "Alright, I will get to it then-"

Inky stood on her way: "Can I help you with that?"

Sarah: "...it needs a lot of training and knowledge so-"

Inky: "I'm a fast learner"

Sarah looked at Erik and saw him nod: "Sigh... fine, follow me, we will first examine samples from the cold storage, food safety is really important after all"

Inky: "right"

Erik went to his daughters: "You will spend some time with me then~? want some ice cream?"

Zoey: "iceqean? what's dat?"

Erik chuckled: "something tasty~"

Timberly: "Ejem... don't wanna interrupt but... how long until we arrive at that Iron Sect base?"

Erik nodded: "a moment"

Erik: [Are we far Rose?]

Rose: [Hmm according to my calculations we should be around at least a week away]

Erik: "Around a week more"

Rose: [and then we have to wait for the assault from the Golden Dawn Group too]

Erik: "And waiting for the assault to intervene when both groups are distracted"

Timberly: "Hmm a week... then we better mutate before the attack, that camouflage ability would be really useful for infiltration"

Erik: "Indeed, it's way more powerful than the camouflage ability of chameleon eels, and without losing defense or mobility. If we combine that with the armoured skin maybe in the form of scales, it would make the octopeople way hardier... "

Jennifer: "Hmm not sure about that, being invisible is fine, but changing our skin... that would affect our mobility and everyday lives, we can just wear armor for protection"

Erik: "You are right... we will start with the invisibility genes and I will give more thought, if it's not good for the octopeople then we can always give it to the crab people since they have shells already..." his serious face relaxed "anyways, I promised my daughter's ice cream" he looked at the others "wanna join?"

Timberly shrugged: "yeah why not"

Jennifer: "Sure"

Jana: "Never tried that... what is it?"

Erik: "Basically, fluffy frozen milk and sugar"

-- Submarine's Kitchen --

Inside the kitchen, Erik started preparing the ingredients while Timberly, Jana, and Jennifer sat at a table with his daughters.

Timberly tried to grab Zoey, but she quickly hid behind a nanny bot: "Aww, let me hold you~"

Erik: "Don't annoy my daughters"

Timberly: "But they are so cute, and they are growing super fast... octopeople aren't born this developed, such cute cheeks~ I could pinch their cheeks all day~"

Zoey ran to Erik and stumbled, with the other daughters also crawling to him: "dawdy! auntyie iz bad!"

Erik's voice turned cold, Zoey had scratched her knee, it quickly healed but it still annoyed him: "Just sit down and behave Timberly, you are old enough"

Timberly: "Sigh, fine~ ...maybe I should visit my kids someday..."

Erik turned to Zoey, picked her up, and kissed her knee: "Pain pain go away!" and then tickled her.

Zoey: "dawdy! Jijiji it tickles! Stop! jijiji! STOP!" her cheeks puffed as her face got angry.

Erik: "Jajaja fine, it doesn't hurt anymore right?"

Zoey moved her knee carefully, her gray skin had healed completely: "It dwasent!"

Erik: "That's good!, now Zoey, Eirenne, Ana, Elena, Maria, wanna help daddy cook?"

Daughters in unison: "Yeah ~" The daughters, way more intelligent than a human toddler already knew to call him daddy when Inky wasn't around, and so they excitedly made a circle around him.

Erik: "Alright~ look how daddy does it first", Erik sat down with the ingredients on the floor so they could see it too "First we prepare 125g of egg whites by separating the yolk on a different yolk for an omelet for later, around two mutant chicken eggs... four chicken eggs for regular size eggs" he then used a fork to whisk it "we whisk it until it foams, now we add 100g of sugar and keep going until the consistency changes" the mix now slightly solid.

He stood up, picked some of Molly's pasteurized milk cream from the fridge, and sat again.

Erik: "now on a different bowl we add 500ml of cold milk cream and we whisk it too until it firms!" his arm moved extremely fast like an industrial mixer "Once it has firmed up we will add the egg whites one third at a time" he added the egg whites and carefully and slowly mixed them "Now the hardest part"

Erik stood up again and took out two metal buckets from the cold room, one of the buckets stuck inside the other with a thick layer of ice between them, and a hand crank to move a mixer in the middle.

Erik: "This is a traditional ice making machine, you take the inner bucket out, pur some salt... and put it on again, that will make the ice absorb way more heat as it melts, cooling super fast our ice cream!"

Maria: "daddy iz clever!"

Erik: "Indeed jajaja now... we pour the mix in and... we mix it slowly, normally we would need to do this for quite a while but, daddy knows a way to make it faster!"

Erik: [Rose, have some liquid Nitrogen?]

Rose: [any gas works?]

Erik: [a safe gas, coldness is the point, it's for the ice cream]

Rose: [okay, got some liquid oxygen from the life support systems, give me a second]

A pipe came from the ceiling, pouring a thin stream of extremely cold liquid oxygen inside the ice cream, causing a mist to emerge as the oxygen evaporated extracting the heat from the ice cream.

Erik: "Alright, that should speed things up..."

Just thirty minutes later, the batch of ice cream was ready.

Erik served a small cup for each of his daughters, and normal wide cups for him and the others.

Erik: "Now either lick it or take small bites, or else-"

Maria: "Aaah head! hurts!" she had bitten a big chunk and gotten brain freeze.

Erik: "Stay still for a moment sweety, it will soon pass. It's just your body reacting to the extreme cold and trying to quickly warm up"

Timberly took a huge bite then too: "Hmm it's cold, no pain though... quite tasty by the way"

Erik shrugged: "well of course, your bodies can endure freezing abyssal waters, ice cream is nothing for your physiology"

Jana: "It's so sweet and soft... it's addicting"

Jennifer: "I'm not used to eating this... but I could"

Erik: "Well, I could make an ice making machine, it's not too complicated, just a heat pump and a slow blender combined..."

Jana: "Oh, can I help with that?"

Erik: "Sure, should be a cool project to learn" he tapped on a screen on his arm "I've sent you the technologies to study when you are ready we will make a CAD model and print it, and we will make it analogic for easy use"

Jana excitedly nodded: "Alright!"

Erik looked at Jennifer calmly eating her ice cream using a teaspoon: "Do you wanna help too?"

Jennifer: "Not this time, I'm quite behind on electricity technology compared to her..."

Erik: "Oh well, where are you stuck?"

Jennifer: "DC vs AC electricity?"

Erik: "Well, DC goes from negative to positive and that's it, positive gains electrons, and negative losses them. As for AC as the name implies it alternates"

Jennifer: "Yes... but why? can't all work with DC?"

Erik: "Well the reason is that AC power can be transmitted over a longer distance with less power loss, although for extreme distances of more than 1000Km direct current can be better. However, the most important factor is materials, if you had lossless superconducting lines then DC would be better"

Jennifer: "A superconducting wire... an example?"

Erik: "Hmm... niobium titanium or NbTi is often used, although there are better alloys, any other doubts?"

Jennifer: "Not for now, I have enough studying for a while, thank you"

Erik smiled: "Glad to help- huh?" when he suddenly felt a tug on his clothes, looking down he saw Eirenne looking at him "What is it, sweety?"

Eirenne: "Ice cream... milk... what?"

Erik: "Well milk is a liquid produced by mammals to feed their young, humans also produce milk inside their boobs as you know. As for the milk for the Ice Cream it comes from Molly, a giant creature"

Eirenne: "Molly... where?"

Erik: "She's far away sweety, I will take you all to see her one day"

At that moment, Erik's communicator beeped.

Sarah: *Erik, the first batch is ready*

Erik tapped the communicator on his neck: "We are coming"

Erik: "Sarah made the first batch, let's go" he then looked down and saw Eirenne yawn.

Erik: [can you take the girls to bed, they seem to be sleepy]

Rose: [sure]

The nanny bots took the daughters and went away.

And they all exited the kitchen and went into the armoury at the end of the hallway.

Sarah waited for them inside, an excited smile on her face as she closed a flask full of an opaque white liquid.

Sarah: "Second flask of refined invisibility DNA ready~"

Erik: "Second? what happened to the first?"

Sarah looked around: "well that-"

But a figure suddenly hugged Erik from behind, interrupting them, seemingly appearing out of nowhere.

Inky: "I drank it~"

Erik: "Jajaja now that is invisibility~"